28 Days
by Runawaymetaphor
Summary: "I've never been very good at lowering at my shields," she admits. It's a confession as well as an apology.
1. Prologue

**Twenty-Eight Days**

**Prologue**

On the twenty-ninth day of his sentence, she appears in front of his cell, dismissing the guards before she deactivates the containment field.

He hadn't expected to come here. Or at least, he hadn't expected her to appear at the end of his sentence, having given up hope when she didn't come down the first few weeks.

He has troubling looking at her, and it becomes clear after a few moments that he meets her gaze only by sheer force of will.

She, on the other hand, can't seem to look anywhere but his eyes. And the intensity with which her searching stare examines him only makes it more difficult for him not to look away.

"I never would have believed you could disappoint me, Tom."

Her voice is quiet as she sits down next to him, but the words will echo in his ears as though she's shouted them in an even smaller space. The sound, faint and haunting, finding him again, long after he thinks it's faded.

"I'm not sure what to say," he breathes, giving in to the impulse to shut his eyes.

He, of course, has many thoughts on what to say, chief among them being an apology. But he still thinks an apology is unfitting.

And in other ways, woefully inadequate.

"Do you still feel that you can be Chief Conn Officer?"

She's asking if their mutual trust has been broken beyond repair. If he no longer desires to sit across from her meetings. To have her hand placed reassuringly on his shoulder when things get tough.

But she can't allow herself to ask this, and so her concern comes out in this vague way. His understandable interpretation being the threat of further consequences; a more profound demonstration of her disappointment.

"I still feel up to it, Captain. . . But if you feel that I'm not, I suppose there's really nothing more I can say."

His voice comes out cold and detached, but he can't keep the flash of panic from his eyes. Or the anger.

She examines him once more before dropping her head and nodding.

They sit next to each other for several minutes. Side by side in the cell that was meant to be one's penalty, but that over the last four weeks, has come to be a punishment for both.

When she rises, she doesn't look at him, merely pausing outside his cell before raising the force field again.

"I'll see you on the bridge in two days, Ensign."

It isn't the first time someone has used his new rank. But it is the first time the title makes him recoil as though being struck.

He consciously wills away the pain, not realizing the woman in front of him is doing the same. Her throat burning from the words she's uttered; the title she's condemned herself to use for the foreseeable future.

"Aye, ma'am," he manages, his voice somehow even.

She simply nods before exiting.


	2. The things you leave behind

**The things you leave behind**

Her mother's death is sudden, coming two and a half years after _Voyager's _return to Earth.

It strange to think of one's self as an orphan, when one is the age of fifty. But standing in the turbolift at Headquarters after she finds out, this is how she feels. Her father is long dead, and now she has no mother.

The funeral is a quiet affair, and her sister Phoebe organizes everything. It takes place in Indiana, and she doesn't think to invite any of her former crew. Most of them are away from Earth on assignment anyway, and even if they weren't she isn't sure she would know what to say them.

She's never been very good about asking for emotional support, or even knowing when she needs it.

When Tom Paris drops down wordlessly beside her at the funeral, she feels awash with gratitude. Her sister and brother-in-law sit in front of them, and when Phoebe begins to cry, her husband holds her.

Watching her mother's coffin lowered into the ground, the seat next to her occupied by her former helmsman rather than a husband, a lover, she fails to weep. She feels nothing. As though someone has given her a pain killer targeted specifically for the aching loss she felt only a few hours earlier.

When a family friend stands up and gives a long, moving speech about the value of family, the worth of a life being what one leaves behind, she feels Tom's hand slip into hers. Shortly afterward she realizes that there are tears streaming down her cheeks, but she has no idea when they started.

Walking through the trees in the cemetery with Tom, she remains mostly silent. It isn't until they sit down on a bench that she even ventures to glance at him.

"B'Elanna wanted to be here, too," he says, sounding regretful. "But we were torn as to whether we should bring Miral."

Looking forward at the trees in front of them, she shakes her head.

"I'm glad you didn't bring her. . . She's too young to have to sit through this."

He nods in acknowledgment, watching as the wind moves leaves in lazy patterns near their feet.

"How did you know?" she asks, now looking at him with a searching expression.

"Tuvok," he responds, meeting her gaze. "I'd contacted him to ask something pertaining to the program I'm writing and he told me."

She looks away again, squinting her eyes in the mid-day sunlight.

"You should have told everyone. They would have wanted to be here, too. . . It's not just B'Elanna and I."

She knows he's right. But she also suspects that's why she didn't tell her former crew. That as much as she needed all of them, she didn't want to have to sit next to Harry Kim or Naomi Wildman at her mother's funeral.

Forced to put on a strong face as they lowered into the ground the woman who raised her.

She says nothing, and he regards her with a soft expression she can barely see, just out of the corner of her eye.

"It's been almost three years, Kathryn. You got us all home and everyone is back where they belong. They don't still expect you to be their Captain. . . You're allowed to be a person."

The accuracy with which pinpoints her feelings, much like the familiarity with which he voices is it, is startling to her. She looks at him with a mixture of shock and discomfort.

He smiles at her softly before threading her hand through hers again and watching the continued dance of leaves.

"I'm so glad you're here," she breathes, after a moment, and his smile immediately widens. "Can you stay at all? I feel like I haven't seen you in ages."

"Six months, to be exact. Which is entirely too long in my book." He pauses, looking even more regretful than before. "But as much I'd like to stay, I have to transport home in a few hours. B'Elanna and Miral are leaving for a month the day after tomorrow and I need to get back to them soon."

"A month?" she asks, obviously concerned. "Where could they possibly be going for an entire month?"

"B'Elanna's over seeing the refitting of Deep Space Nine. She's managed to do most of it from here, but there's a month that she has no choice but to be present for. . . I tried to convince her to let Miral stay with me, though I'm not sure why I bothered. There's no reasoning with a Klingon mother."

Despite his attempt at humor, it's obvious the prospect of being without his wife and child pains him deeply. She gives the hand she's holding a reassuring squeeze.

"You could beam back with me for dinner," he points out. "I'm sure you could use a break from. . . all this."

He knows, with excruciating detail, what 'all this' entails. His mother died several years before _Voyager_ was lost in the Delta Quadrant, and he can clearly remember the steady stream of friends, family and colleagues who inserted themselves in the Paris home for a week. His older sisters covering for him while he hid out in his old room, away from his father's expressionless face and the waiting crowd of people who surrounded him.

"I wouldn't want to take away from your last few days with your family. You should spend time with them alone before B'Elanna leaves."

Looking at her, he shrugs.

"They're your family, too. It isn't an intrusion."

At another time or place, she would dismiss the statement as a polite echo of her own statements over the years.

But now, after two days of feeling like an orphan- two days of watching her sister retreat into the comfort of her husband and children- Tom's words strike a chord deep within her. Her eyes swim with tears that are quickly blinked away.

"I need to take care of a few things here first. Thank people for coming. Make sure my sister is holding up after all of this."

"That's fine," he reassures. "We can leave whenever you're ready. Do you want me to come back to the house with you, or would you rather go alone?"

She hesitates before answering him, and he realizes that she doesn't want to go alone but also doesn't feel comfortable asking him to stay.

He stands, holding out his arm to her, and she floods with gratitude all over again.

"Did I mention I'm glad you're here?" she asks, as they pick their way back through the trees.

"Yes. But feel free to say it as often as you like."

. . . . .

When Tom pushes open the door to his home, a living room strewn with toys immediately comes into view.

She visited their apartment in San Francisco several times, but the house in Portland they bought just under a year ago.

"B'Elanna hates snow," he'd explained, over comm link several months earlier.

"San Francisco doesn't have snow," she'd countered, sad that they'd moved away from the town she still lived in, but feeling slightly irrational for it given that she never saw them anyway.

"Ah, yes. But San Francisco has my father. Another thing B'Elanna likes to avoid."

She'd worried at first, but his tone held no bitterness and his characteristic grin indicated it was just the reality of most in-law relationships.

Looking back at him over the comm link, she'd chuckled.

Standing presently in Tom and B'Elanna's entryway, the thud of footsteps is quickly heard.

"Daddy!" Miral exclaims, throwing her tiny arms around her father.

Though only two and a half, she equals a human child of roughly four in size. The ferociousness of her hug betrays her Klingon ancestry even more than her speedy development.

"Look who I brought with me," he says, motioning his head to Kathryn, who lingers just behind him.

"Aunt Kathryn!"

Before Tom can warn her to be careful, Miral throws her arms around her godmother, sending the petite woman back a few paces.

"Did I mention she's gotten stronger?" Tom quips, scratching the side of his face.

"I noticed," Kathryn replies, finally disentangling herself from Miral's arms. "And bigger. . . You're almost tall enough to see over the panels of a shuttle."

Tom laughs at the remark while B'Elanna appears from the kitchen, wearing a rueful expression.

"Let's not give her father more ideas than he already has, Kathryn."

Tom gives his wife an appreciative look his former Captain doesn't see; a silent thank you for dropping rank, if only for the evening.

Looking at B'Elanna's put off expression, Kathryn tries to stifle a smile.

"I take it I inadvertently hit on a recent topic of conversation?"

B'Elanna rolls her eyes but smiles, joining them in the entryway.

"You could say that. . . Tom's plans for Miral to learn to fly have been a topic of . . . discussion since she was born."

Tom smiles, leading his daughter into the dining room with whispered commentary neither woman can hear.

B'Elanna lingers in the entryway, her expression changing to a soft one as she moves closer to Kathryn.

"I'm so sorry about your mother," she says, looking at her with tears that have suddenly formed in her eyes.

"Oh, it's alright. . . She lived a long life."

The reply comes out feebly and neither of them believe it. The younger woman immediately moves to hug her, Miral's embrace paling in strength compared to her mother's.

"I'm so sorry," B'Elanna repeats, and immediately Kathryn feels her own eyes well with tears.

"Thank you," she replies sincerely, as she pulls away.

After dinner, she helps Tom with the dishes while B'Elanna occupies Miral in the living room.

"Would you like help dealing with your mother's house?" he asks, wiping a plate.

"Oh, Tom, it's going to take weeks. . . That's the reason I petitioned for the personal leave."

"I know. But four weeks still isn't a lot of time."

He pauses as she hands him another plate, their eyes meeting over the sink. They both know that four weeks can be a painfully long time to be alone with one's thoughts.

"I have to transport to meetings in New Jersey twice a week, but other than that I can do my work anywhere. . . It isn't any bother."

He doesn't voice that he doesn't want her to go through her mother's things alone. Having to deal with the possessions her mother has left behind, after her sister and brother-in-law transport back to their waiting jobs.

"You should talk it over with B'Elanna," she cautions. "It would mean leaving your house empty for almost a month."

"I already have," he replies. "She agrees. . . It's not like we have any pets to look after. "

Putting down the dish she's been working on, she fails to hide her surprise. He and B'Elanna have been alone for all of two minutes since she arrived, and even then it was only to bring out dinner from the kitchen.

"You've already talked with her about it?"

She sounds incredulous, even skeptical, and he smiles at the reaction.

"We have conversations down to a rather efficient speed," he assures. "And to be honest, it was actually her idea."

By the time Tom and B'Elanna walk Kathryn to their door, she still hasn't replied to Tom's offer.

B'Elanna's face betrays more expectation than her husband's, the latter simply looking at her softly as his little girl clings to his hand.

"So, I'll you see in two days?" she asks, and he abruptly looks relieved.

"Yep. I'll beam over sometime before 20:00."

She hugs Miral and B'Elanna goodbye, wishing her former Chief Engineer well on her month-long endeavor.

Standing in front of Tom, she hesitates. She hasn't hugged former pilot since he first appeared at the funeral and she isn't sure if it's due to her reluctance or his.

"Thanks," she says, not quite meeting his gaze.

"Of course," he responds, moving toward her.

When he wraps his arms around her, she goes willingly. Somehow content when he rests his chin on the top her head.

. . . . . . .

The afternoon before Tom beams to Indiana, Kathryn spends hours worrying that him joining her is a mistake.

The two of them do well together in a crisis or when around other people, but left alone in quiet moments they tend to flounder. Small talk is awkward or stilted rather than flowing naturally, and the lingering looks of doubt he sometimes gives her serve as a reminder of the years of things that have gone unsaid.

Sitting on her mother's sofa, she remembers the conversation she had with Chakotay in her ready room, almost six months after the incident with the Moneans.

"You have to do something about Tom, Kathryn," Chakotay had pleaded. 'I know things are still strained since his demotion, but it's taking a toll on morale now. Everyone on the bridge feels the tension radiating between the two of you."

The word 'tension' wasn't quite right, they both knew. It was more like a polite distance. A fumbling awkwardness that neither she nor Tom knew how to resolve.

"We're fine," she lied. "It's just going to take time for things to settle down again. . . Mister Paris and I are just feeling our way through this."

He gave her a pointed look at the avoidance of Tom's new rank; an avoidance that was frequent and completely belied any reassurance she sought to offer her First Officer now.

"How long is it going to take, Kathryn?" he pressed, obviously unswayed. "Another six months? Another year?" The two of you don't even play pool anymore."

It had been strange, Chakotay being the champion of her stagnated friendship with Tom. But then, it was her banter with her pilot that often set the tone for bridge shifts. A signal to others, the way he looked at her with complete confidence in a crunch - despite that he'd lived through twice as much as Harry Kim, and wasn't naturally prone to optimism.

"It will take however long it takes," she stated, failing to keep the bleakness from her voice.

As the Indiana sun sets, bathing her mother's living room in soft shades of yellow, she pictures Chakotay's face across from her. Imagining him reclined comfortably in her father's chair, rather than light years away on Dorvan V with Seven and their two children.

_How long is it going to take, Kathryn?_

His voice had been quiet in her ready room, but the words still echo in her ears as though he shouted them in an even smaller space. The sound, faint and haunting, finding her again, long after she thinks it's faded.

When Tom finally arrives, his mood matches her own. He is emotionally spent from saying goodbye to his daughter and wife, and when he appears at the threshold of the house, he's both physically and figuratively wilted.

"Are you hungry?" she asks, and he slowly shakes his head.

She nods, moving to the dining room. He stays standing where he is, and when she returns, she hands him a small glass of sherry. He takes it with murmured appreciation, following her into the living room and sitting beside her on the couch.

"I was thinking we could start with my father's office tomorrow," she says, after they've sat for a while in silence.

"Sure," he responds, but it's obvious his thoughts are elsewhere. Likely trailing behind the transport that ferries the women he loves to Deep Space Nine.

After an hour of relative silence, she leads him to his room, turning down the blankets on the bed as he places his duffel bag on the ground with a soft thud.

"Is this your old room?"

As he asks, he regards the room skeptically. He can't really see her here.

"No. Mine is across the hall. This was Phoebe's."

She doesn't tell him that room all the way down the hall sits ready but empty. That she took an hour to rearrange Phoebe' old room because she couldn't bare to sleep in her mother's.

He says nothing when the taught expression appears on her face, knowing too well that there are thoughts Kathryn Janeway never shares with anyone. Least of all with him.

"Let me know if you need anything. I'm just across the hall."

After she leaves him, he changes into his sleep clothes and sits in bed, working for several hours. Sleep probably won't find him tonight, and even if it does, nightmares may await.

Staring at the same bit of holocode he's been working for the last twenty minutes, he tosses the PADD aside.

At some point, she realizes that she isn't alone in the bedroom, but she isn't sure how long he's been standing there. Her sleep has been fitful, and waking up for the fourth time, her brain is slow to process the dark shapes that the moonlight beyond the window reveals.

"Tom?" she asks, her voice even lower than normal.

"I didn't mean to wake you. . . I just couldn't sleep."

"Everything alright?"

She's surprised when he sits on her bed instead of responding, his body only centimeters from her own.

He looks out the window rather than down at her, and his face, bathed in light, seems much older than it is. The skin below his eyes sags noticeably, his forehead beset with worry lines.

"Do you think that while I'm here . . . you could forget that you were my Captain?"

His question coupled with is proximity should be enough to put her at red alert. And coming from anyone else, it would be.

But failing everything else in their relationship, she still instinctively trusts Tom. And failing that, she knows the complete devotion with which he loves his wife.

She could probably walk across the room naked and he wouldn't even think to look. Not that she's going to test that thesis anytime soon.

It helps, too, that she understands what he's asking, the shape of his concern emerging in the darkness of her bedroom. Alone with her in the coming weeks, he doesn't want to have to hide the fact that he's a man who painfully misses his family. Nor does want her to have hide that she painfully misses the woman whose belongings they'll sort through and pack away.

Room by room, putting into order a lifetime that has come quietly to a close.

"I've never been very good at lowering at my shields," she admits.

It's a confession as well as an apology.

"I know. . . Neither have I, I suppose." He pauses, looking down at her. "But we could try together. We could leave behind all the defense mechanisms and the awkwardness. . . While I'm here, you could trust me."

The openness in his face is shattering to her, and she instinctively reaches for his hand.

"I do trust you, Tom. I always have."

His expression becomes rueful and she fumbles helplessly for words. They both know her statement is the truth, but something about it also courts a lie.

It obscures the reality that though each of them trusts the other, neither are very good at trusting themselves.

"I'd like to try," she says eventually, and he nods, getting up from her bed.

"You could stay," she offers, as he makes his way toward the door.

She isn't sure why she says this to him, given that she's someone who's quick to invade the personal space of others but acutely defensive of her own.

Partly, it's because seeing his open fear and doubt has stirred something deep within her- her desire to protect and watch over him, shielding him even when she doesn't need to.

She'll realize, days later, that it's also that he has stolen into her bedroom the way her younger sister used to when she one of them was upset. Phoebe having crawled into bed beside her, and two of them talking in furtive whispers until they finally fell asleep.

Looking at her from the doorway, he immediately shakes his head.

"It's tempting offer, I admit. But you wouldn't sleep a wink with me in here with you."

"I'd like to try," she repeats, and this time he laughs a bit.

"All things in due time. Tomorrow we'll try to make conversation without awkward silence, and then we'll go from there."

The way he gently teases her is familiar. She waves him off to his own bedroom with a put off expression that bespeaks an underlying affection. He smiles at her through the darkness, closing the door behind him.

When she falls asleep once more, her rest is sound. Her thoughts comforted, even in unconsciousness, by the presence of the friend who now sleeps just across the hall.


	3. The things left unspoken

**The things left unspoken  
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Drifting close to consciousness, Tom is having a dream about B'Elanna.

He can't see her face, but he can feel her standing over him. He's back on _Voyager, _in Sickbay, though how he knows it isn't clear, as he can't make out anything he sees.

He hears the Doctor's voice, the sound distorted as though far away.

"He's definitely dead."

The statement is casual, an unimportant observation.

"Are you sure?"

B'Elanna's voice breaks even in getting out the three-word question.

"Positive," the Doctor confirms.

"We should tell the Captain."

"No need to overreact," the Doctor tsks. "It would interrupt the Prixin festivities. . . We'll wait for a better time. Perhaps next week."

The voices end, but he can feel that B'Elanna is still standing by him. He wants to shout that he's alive, reach for her hand- anything. But he finds that he can't move or produce sound.

When he wakes with a start, he reaches for his wife, finding only the cool sheets of an empty bed.

Walking into the kitchen, Kathryn is surprised to find Tom already awake. Unlike her, clad in her robe, he's fully dressed, sitting at the small wooden table doing work.

It doesn't take much scrutiny to tell he's been up for sometime. The bags underneath his eyes are pronounced and something about the rest of his face is oddly taut.

"Didn't sleep well?" she asks, pouring some of the coffee waiting for her on the counter. It's freshly brewed, not replicated, and the smell wafts deliciously through the entire room.

"Slept fine," he shrugs.

She lowers herself into the stool across from him, maneuvering her knees so as not to bump his under the limited space of the table.

His eyes still trained on the PADD in front of him, he can feel that she's scrutinizing him, but he assumes that she'll refrain from making any further remarks when he doesn't give her an in.

"We're not off to such a good start at lowering our shields."

When he finally looks up at her, she has her head resting on her arms, her coffee forgotten on the table. Her expression is patient, not chiding.

He puts his PADD to the side of the table, looking down as he does so.

He expected when he woke up earlier that she would pretend their conversation the night before never happened, unwilling to let her defensives down, no matter what her intentions. He should be grateful that he was wrong, but all he can feel presently is frustration that he has to be the one to let his down first.

"I slept fine after I left your room," he explains. "But I woke up from a nightmare this morning and I couldn't go back to sleep after it."

Her furrows her brow slightly as she looks at him, sipping her coffee as though she's thinking.

"What kind of a nightmare?"

"I'm not sure that I can explain it. . . It was . . . Strange."

She doesn't say anything, obviously waiting for him to go on. He scrunches his face, adopting her pose, head propped up by his arms.

"I was back on _Voyager_. In Sickbay."

"I can see already why it was a nightmare," she teases, eyes twinkling.

"Exactly," he responds, chuckling softly at the joke.

He and the Doctor have remained friends, but their relationship has certainly been helped by the fact that he no longer has to listen to the hologram's self-indulgent lectures.

Except, of course, when it comes to his god-daughter.

He stills, looking contemplative.

"I was dead."

"You mean you were hurt, dying?"

"No," he says, smiling with forming embarrassment, "I was dead. . . I could hear B'Elanna and the Doc talking over my body. But I couldn't move or speak."

She puts down her coffee cup again, seemingly fascinated.

"What were they talking about exactly?"

"Me, I guess. B'Elanna asked if he was sure I was dead, and the Doc said he was positive. And then she said that they should tell you."

"What happened then?" she asks, leaning closer to him over the table.

He smirks slightly.

"He told her to that it could keep for a week. Something about Prixin." He pauses, the smile falling from his face. "I tried to move, tell B'Elanna that I was there. And I couldn't."

Her eyes narrow, her face becoming concerned.

"The Doctor said that the news of your death would keep for a week? From me?"

He looks back at her, surprised that this is what she latched onto, as it wasn't the part that disturbed him.

"To tell you the truth. . . He didn't sound all that crushed about my demise."

He says it with a smile, but she looks back at him with concern that hasn't abated.

"What a strange dream," she comments, looking back down at the table and drinking her coffee.

"Definitely," he agrees. "But then I woke up."

"To an empty bed," she supplies softly.

He nods, dropping his gaze back to the PADD in his hand, and they both fall into an uneasy quiet.

"Do you still want to start with your father's office today?" he asks eventually.

"Good a place as any."

At this, he looks up again, searching her face.

He knows how she lost her father and her fiancé in the same accident, but they've never talked about it. Just as they've never talked about the time she spent in the Cardassian POW camp with his own father. It's something he would normally keep silent about now, thinking it's not his place.

His silence, however, no longer seems appropriate.

"Are you sure that's a good idea?" he asks, his voice low.

She shrugs dismissively, as if he's asked her whether she should really have that fourth cup of coffee.

"Has to be done at some point."

Something about her logic isn't quite right, but he doesn't challenge her. He's yet to rid himself of the instinct to go along with her decisions.

However much the instinct proves as damaging as it does helpful.

. . . . .

It isn't until they're deep into clearing out the office and find a storage bin with photographs that she breaks down.

There's one of her standing between her father and a man about her age whom Tom doesn't recognize. He looks at the photo briefly, but she tucks it away quickly, moving onto her father's desk.

He thinks she's fine at first, but then he sees her shoulders duck in and her body begin to shake. He moves from what he's doing on the bookshelf, coming to stand behind her.

When she feels his arms wrap around her shoulders, she tries to make the tears stop. They won't, coming harder instead, and she finds herself shaking for several minutes while her former pilot holds her.

"I'm sorry," she apologizes, when she's calmed herself.

"You're not allowed to apologize," he replies, shaking his head.

Not 'don't apologize' or 'there's no need'; she's slightly struck by the response. She can't remember the last time someone other than her mother directed the words 'you're not allowed to' at her.

"Thank you," she breathes.

He says nothing in response, perching on her father's desk

"He wasn't very good at telling me he was proud of me," she admits, looking around the half empty room.

"He told my father all the time that he was proud of you," he soothes. "I heard him a few times when I was in Dad's office."

"Just the way your father used to tell me how proud he was of you," she counters.

He nods, dropping his head.

Expressions of pride, like those of love, mean terribly little when said to people other than their object. They have both suffered, albeit in different ways, from their fathers' inability to express their feelings directly.

"He would have been so proud of what you achieved on _Voyager_," he murmurs, looking at the picture on the desk of her with her father.

"We all achieved it," she dismisses, out of reflex.

"I'm not talking about getting back home," he retorts, this time firmly. "I'm talking about before. . . Seven years of constant struggle and challenges to your principles. Seven years of making the ship a home to the crew."

He turns to her, locking onto her eyes with a sudden intensity.

"Not many people would have been able to do what you did, Kathryn. They would have folded under the pressure. Or become like Captain Ransom."

She holds his gaze, having no idea how to respond.

Sometimes she feels like she folded. Sometimes she feels like she became Captain Ransom.

"But you didn't," he finishes. "You made it. And you pulled us all with you."

Her eyes fill with tears again and she looks away from him. When she blinks the tears away, she puts her hand on the knee next to her as a silent thank you, and then moves away from the desk.

"We should have some lunch," she says, shifting the subject.

Neither of them ate anything for breakfast other than coffee, and her question reminds him that his stomach is empty.

"Sure."

"Do you care what I replicate?"

"Replicate?" he ask with horror. "There's a fully functioning kitchen in this house."

"You can cook?"

"You can't?" he asks, but his spreading grin betrays that he already knows the answer.

She crosses her arms in front of her, narrowing her eyes.

"Has Chakotay told you some story?"

He laughs, looking not the least bit guilty.

"I may have weaseled a few tales out of him. Over the years."

She shakes her head with frustration.

"Remind me to have his security clearance pulled at the end of this. Clearly, he can't be trusted with sensitive information."

He smiles, knowing she isn't really angry, before following her into the kitchen.

. . . . . . .

As Kathryn finishes cleaning their plates, Tom pours over his latest work project in the dining room.

Both of them are solemn on their sixth evening together, having finished her father's office and moved onto her mother's bedroom.

The decision was one Tom openly questioned, worrying that it would be too much for her to deal with in one week.

It's the only time an argument will run its course during his stay. But he didn't back down, even when she glared menacingly at him. Or else, when she refused to speak to him for an hour after the glare failed.

Putting the last dish away, Kathryn wishes she'd listened to Tom when they'd argued.

It took two days and a half days and three breakdowns to finish packing the bedroom, and she'd cried even harder than she had in her father's office. Her legs at one point collapsed under her from her shattering sobs, Tom catching her as she stood in front of the closet she used to sneak into as a girl.

Tom has been patient in his support, but offered her no consoling words when she began to cry. It wasn't that he didn't know what to say, but that he recognized no consolation was possible.

When she sits down across from him with coffee in hand, he manages to keep a sympathetic look from his face.

"What are you working on?" she asks.

It's the first time she's shown any interest in his work since he arrived.

In truth, it's the first time she's shown any interest in his work since he left Starfleet for his current profession.

"Simulations for the new advanced piloting center the Academy is putting together."

Her face piques with interest, as well as surprise.

"Really?"

He chooses to ignore her surprise, at least for the moment.

"Yep. It's way I contacted Tuvok. There are a few battle simulations that I think could be made more difficult, but I needed help from someone with more tactical experience."

Her eyebrows draw together slightly as she sips her coffee.

"You could have contacted me," she points out, cradling the mug.

She isn't just alluding to his failure to contact her this time, but his failure to contact her ever regarding his work.

"You thought I was busy writing Risa programs," he teases, but something about his tone betrays he isn't entirely kidding.

"I didn't know what you were busy doing," she points out, her voice serious. "You never talk about your work."

He tilts his head to the side after a moment. A concession that she wasn't the only one slow to bring up his new career.

"You were disappointed when I left Starfleet. I think I've been afraid to talk about it."

She grimaces at the confession, but then leans slightly over the table, her eyes searching his face.

"I admit I was disappointed, Tom. But I wasn't disappointed _in_ _you_. There's a difference."

He looks at her hesitantly, his doubts barely masked. He buys the distinction she's making, but he doesn't necessarily think it applies to her feelings about him abandoning the commission she handed him ten years ago.

"My leaving Starfleet had nothing to do with how I felt about my time on _Voyager_," he assures, dodging her last statement. "Being a part of that crew, being under your command was something I found rewarding. But entering back into Starfleet at large- dealing with promotion and Starfleet Command. Policies that never made sense to me. . ."

He shrugs, uninterested in finishing the thought.

She eyes him with open skepticism. She buys part of his reasoning, but she doesn't believe that his decision to leave Starfleet behind had nothing to do with his feelings about his seven years on her ship.

"I know it was difficult for you to reconcile protocols with your own approach to situations. After the Moneans-"

"No."

He cuts her off quickly and firmly, though the one-word interruption isn't angry.

"No?" she echoes, her voice rising with challenge.

"Not now," he explains, shaking his head slowly.

She softens, realizing it isn't an argument he's after.

"I want to talk about it," she presses. "There have been things that have gone unspoken, on both of our sides, for far too long."

"You're right," he agrees, leaning back in his chair. "And we will talk about it. But not tonight. Not after today."

However stubborn Kathryn Janeway is, she's also a woman who learns from her mistakes. She doesn't fight him this time, but her acceptance of his words doesn't quell her concern either.

"So then when?" she asks, her eyes doing the pleading she won't allow in her tone.

"Soon," he promises. "But not tonight."

. . . .

On the morning of the seventh day, Tom transports to his office to attend a meeting and touch base with his staff.

The house feels strange without him, and Kathryn is disturbed by how much his sudden absence bothers her.

When B'Elanna comms from Deep Space Nine, it's a welcome distraction from the quiet that has settled over the house.

"He's in New Jersey," Kathryn apologizes, after the woman asks after her husband.

"I forgot he was going in today," B'Elanna says, obviously frustrated with herself.

"I'll have him comm you when he gets back."

"No. . . I'm about to leave for several hours while we replace one of the docking rings. I'll have to comm him tomorrow."

The pain on the younger woman's face is clear. Kathryn smiles sympathetically.

"How is everything going at the station?"

When B'Elanna's face shifts to obvious frustration, it takes her former Captain back in time. She almost laughs out loud.

"You wouldn't be willing to pull rank and temporarily reassemble _Voyager_'s engineering team, would you?"

The request isn't a serious one. Yet.

"It can't be all that bad," Kathryn comments.

"There's no way we're going to finish what we need to while I'm here. But I refuse to stay any longer than I've planned, so they're just going to have deal with doing things over comm lines."

She's pleasantly surprised to hear that B'Elanna is drawing lines when it comes to work and her home life, as it's something the younger woman has never been historically good at.

The unfortunate tendency is one of the many things they have in common.

"How's Miral?"

Here B'Elanna's face becomes obviously pained, and Kathryn regrets asking the unthinking question that triggered the reaction.

"She misses her father," B'Elanna replies solemnly. "She had a fit last night and I couldn't calm her down. He's much better at soothing her than I am."

"It'll go by quickly," Kathryn assures, but B'Elanna doesn't look at all convinced.

"How are things going there?" B'Elanna queries, trying to change the subject.

Kathryn hesitates at first. But staring at B'Elanna's expectant face, she realizes that her former pilot isn't the only one with whom too many things have gone unsaid over the years.

"It's been difficult," she admits. "But Tom's been incredibly supportive. It appears he has a way with admirals in addition to Klingon children. Perhaps they have something in common?"

The engineer laughs, her dark eyes twinkling.

"He'll surprise you," B'Elanna warns. "One minute he's off playing Captain Proton, and the next he's the most observant, understanding person you've ever met. . . It can be disarming."

Kathryn smiles slightly. She's noticed.

"I should go," B'Elanna says, "I need to make way down to the docking ring."

"Good luck," Kathryn wishes. "And B'Elanna. . . After you settle in at home, we should have dinner. Just the two of us."

The engineer seems surprised by the offer but pleased nonetheless.

"Absolutely. I'll make Tom stay home with Miral. Perhaps after I've filled her with ice cream and candy, as her father so thoughtfully does for me."

"Ha. Good planning. I'll tell Tom that you commed. Janeway out."

When Tom arrives back at the house just after lunch, Kathryn fails to hide her relief.

"I thought you were going to be gone all day," she says, looking at him in the entryway.

"It's good to see you, too," he teases, and she rolls her eyes with a smile. "I cut it short. Wanted to get back here and spend the afternoon with you."

"I rather thought you'd be sick of dusty rooms and packing," she remarks, slightly apologetic for the last week.

"Well, I'd rather thought we could take a break from that. Maybe go into the city later and have some dinner together."

She looks at him with mixed emotions. She hasn't been able to do much of anything without him, but the idea of giving up entirely on the day isn't one she likes.

In front of her, he sighs.

"Even God rested on the seventh day, Kathryn."

She isn't sure whether to be put off more by his tone, or the fact he's comparing her to an entity neither of them believe in.

When she crosses her arms, he tries to disarm her temper before it can set itself to detonate.

"Surely there's some little bar around here you'd like to go to."

"It's Indiana," she deadpans, and he looks at her, waiting. "Two things that aren't in short supply here are cornfields and bars."

When they sit across from each other hours later, it's in a small pub in downtown Bloomington, after a leisurely dinner and a bottle and a half of wine.

"I never would have pegged you for a lightweight," he teases, his own cheeks slightly red from the cabernet.

"I am not a lightweight, Mister Paris. And I take such an accusation very seriously."

The denial is quickly belied by the faltering of her glare, both of them beginning to snicker at their slightly inebriated state.

His tolerance for real alcohol isn't much higher than hers. Being the parent of a small child doesn't exactly allow a lot of pub time.

"I should have gotten you drunk on the ship," he smirks, sipping his wine.

"I believe you tried. Several times."

Despite his delayed reaction time, he feigns hurt impressively.

"Why is that you always blamed me for the Prixin nectar being spiked?"

"Because it was always you who spiked it," she retorts, beginning to laugh.

"It was a team effort, I assure you. Your own Ensign Kim was highly resourceful, those last two Prixins."

She stops, her eyes flying wide.

"_Harry_? No. . . I don't believe you."

He smirks, leaning over the small table so that his face is closer to hers.

"Harry wasn't as innocent as you think, my dear Admiral. He might have been in the beginning. But at some point, it was just an act. . . An alibi to cover his darker motivations and seedy nature."

Her eyes narrow, as if considering his words.

"If that's true- and I'm not saying I think it is- Harry's conversion was due to the influence of a certain pilot."

He chuckles, shaking his head.

"I see. According to you, everything is my fault."

The taunt is meant as a good-natured one, but she abruptly stops smiling when he speaks it. She opens her mouth to say something, but he cuts her off, knowing exactly what road she's about to go down.

"No."

"No?" she echoes again, this time incredulous.

"No," he repeats firmly.

"Why?"

The question is practically spat him, and he lets go of a ragged breath as he watches anger further color the high cheekbones that are already rosy from alcohol.

"Because we're having a perfectly pleasant evening together. Because we're away from the house and everything that being there entails. Because it's silly to drag up painful memories when the entire point of the night has been to get away from them."

The slight desperation in his tone mollifies her enough to lower her glare from kill to stun, but she still doesn't drop the pursuit.

"If we can't talk about it after a bad day, and we can't talk about it after a good day, when can we possibly talk about it?"

"Soon," he promises again. "But not tonight."

She looks away from him, obviously frustrated, and he reaches for her hand over the table.

"Kathryn," he says, but she refuses to look at him. "_Kathryn_."

When she finally turns her face back to him, her eyes are filled with equal parts doubt and anger.

It's a look he's seen before, though not for many years.

"We've known each other for ten years," he remarks, his voice tipping into plaintive. "Can't we just for once remember all the good things without remembering the bad?"

She looks down at their hands, and then softens perceptibly.

She's getting accustomed to giving into his requests. She's getting accustomed, too, to abandoning her own demands.

"There was a lot of good," she concedes, meeting his gaze again.

"And it far outweighed the bad," he adds.

She looks abruptly apologetic. Moving her hand from his, she reaches for her wine glass, holding it up in toast.

"To the good?" she asks, forcing a slight smile.

He nods, holding up his own glass.

"To all the things that went unheralded."


	4. The doubts that find us

**The doubts that find us**

"Did you have a crush on me when we started out on _Voyager_?"

She calls the question to him first thing in the morning, at the end of their second week together. Strolling into the kitchen, clad in her robe and hair pulled back, she pours her first cup of coffee. Dropping the inquiry in front of him as though it's freshly made toast.

No "good morning, Tom," or idle discussion about how he rested. Just straight to the point.

Looking up from his work at the dining room table, Tom eyes her warily.

He can see even from his perch in the next room that she has a leather-bound journal in her hand. It's one of roughly twenty that they found when they cleaned out her mother's bedroom.

"Did your mother not keep a journal?" she asked a week earlier, the night they came home from the bar.

She'd noticed that his eyes had fallen to one of the journals she'd brought downstairs. She hadn't read it yet, and looking at Tom, she could tell he felt uneasy at the prospect of her doing so.

"She did," he responded, sitting down on the couch in the living room.

"But you didn't want to read it? Or your father didn't let you?"

He looked at her evenly as she sank down across from him in her father's chair.

"My father doesn't know about her diaries. My sister Moira found them and took them out of the house. . . She didn't want Dad to find them."

He hadn't needed to explain why his eldest sister spirited their mother's private thoughts away. Kathryn suspected, with mixed emotions, that Owen Paris had been as much an absentee husband as he was an absentee father.

Still, the expression on Tom's face when he looked at her contained more of a warning than an admission of family anguish. However much she yearned for some piece of her mother, the loss still fresh, she couldn't know what she would find in her journals.

And once Pandora's box was opened, the things that escaped could never be put back.

But, as Tom expected, she began to read them anyway. And sitting down their eighth night together, after dinner, she poured over the first journal across from him in the dining room. Her eyes trained on her mother's handwriting as Tom's analyzed holocode.

He hadn't expected her to share anything she read, and at first she didn't. But after two days of taking several months of her mother's private thoughts in at a given sitting, she looked up at him across from the table.

"Why did you ask B'Elanna to marry you?"

The question took him completely off guard, and he'd fumbled for an appropriate answer as she calmly sipped her coffee.

"Because I wanted to prove my commitment to her. . . I guess, because I thought it was time."

She looked at him, skepticism apparent on her face as she cradled her mug.

He was more thrown off by her silence than the initial question, and he put down his work as he regarded her with growing confusion.

"Why?" he asked, sitting back in his chair.

"My mother hadn't wanted to get married when she did. She thought she was too young."

"But?"

"She didn't think my father would wait around forever. It was clear he wanted marriage and children. . . she thought he wouldn't linger if she made it clear she didn't want the same."

Her face hadn't been distraught when she voiced the revelation. Just contemplative. Like she was back in Astrometrics, going over strategic options with Seven.

Across from her, his face twisted in thought.

"Did she regret marrying him? After, I mean."

"No," she responded, with a soft shake of her head. "But. . . she considered their happiness accidental. She thought they both got lucky. Not that she made a wise choice."

He cocked his head to side.

"Did that bother her?"

She paused, mentally considering the entries she'd read.

"No. I don't think so."

He looked at her with a searching stare she found uncomfortable, and she tried not to shift in her seat.

"But it bothers you?"

"Yes," she breathed, after a brief hesitation. "It does."

He smiled rather than looking at her with sympathy.

"Some of the best things happen on accident or without good reason," he warned.

She looked at him, unconvinced, which he found strange. Given the one hundred and fifty odd people she'd called family after being unexpectedly flung to the far corners of the universe.

"B'Elanna and I got married for ill-advised reasons. We got pregnant pretty early, too."

This had thrown her, and she looked at him with confusion.

"You just said you asked her to marry you because you were ready."

"No," he corrected, still smiling, "I said I asked her because I wanted to prove my commitment. Which, at the time, she was challenging. . .Since we were in the middle of a fight."

"You were fighting?" she asked with surprise. She hadn't known any of this. "But you were so happy when you got back to the ship, after the Antarians. "

"_After_ I asked her to marry me," he pointed out. "Before that, she tried to dump me. . . Actually, she did dump me."

"She tried to end your relationship and you asked her to marry you?"

Her voice was completely horrified and he couldn't help but laugh.

"I told you. Ill-advised reasons. It could have been an awful decision."

She paused, starting to smile.

"You got lucky," she murmurs, conceding the point he'd made moments earlier.

"Yes. Yes, we did."

Now, sitting in the same chair he sat in that first conversation about the intersection of her mother's life and his own, he reflects momentarily on the delicate pattern they've established in his brief stay.

Over fourteen days, they've packed away five rooms, their efforts punctuated by six breakdowns and only one full argument. They sit together each morning and night, either at the dining table or smaller one in the kitchen.

He has refused to talk about the Monean incident, for one reason or another, four different times.

And each time Kathryn broaches a touchy topic like the present one, no matter how rewarding the conversation ends up being, she begins it with all the tact of a Klingon targ. Her inquiries charging at him without preface; completely unlike the way he gently slides his own questions to her, always careful of his approach.

"Before I answer, would you care to fill me in on the context?"

He nods his head to the journal in her hand as she comes to stand in the threshold of the dining room, leaning against the side of the wall.

Her face is pensive, dipping slightly into concerned.

"When my father was first made Admiral there was a woman in his office who had feelings for him. The officer was young. My mother thought at first it was just the standard conflation of respect and infatuation that happens with new officers."

"But then?" he presses, reading from her tone that this isn't all.

She crosses her arms, looking at the table rather than him.

"She walked in on them talking. . . Nothing inappropriate. But he was familiar with her in a way he never was with the people under his command."

"Your mother became jealous," he supplies.

"She was worried," she confirms. "He was at work all the time. She thought the move from commanding a Starship to being an Admiral would mean he was home more, but he ended up being away just as much. . . She walked in on him confiding in this woman in a way he hadn't talked to her in a month."

"And your mother had two small children to care for," he points out.

She nods slowly.

"I was six. Phoebe was three."

"She must have been scared," he murmurs, his face twisting in thought. "What happened after that- did she talk to him?"

"There's no entry that talks about it," she replies with a shrug.

He falls silently, watching her mind spin in thought.

Her mother's entries are long and painfully honest, but she didn't write in her journal consistently. Sometimes Kathryn gets glimpses of several weeks in a row, a worry presented and eventually resolved. Sometimes a concern or line of thought is abandoned in months of silence, the next entry failing to pick up on the thread of thoughts voiced in the last.

Right now, her mind hovers in the precipice between the entries. Struggling to fill in whatever distance she can for herself.

"I remember them fighting about it," she says, after a while. "At least I think I do."

"Really?" he says, his forehead crinkling. "How do you know it was about that?"

"I don't," she concedes. "But it was around that time. I remember because of the winter recital she talks about in the same entry."

He looks at her, reaching for a distant piece of imparted information.

"The Dance of the Dying Swan?" he guesses, the corners of his mouth tugging upward.

She rolls her eyes at him, but the brief twinkling in them betrays her mirth.

"One and the same," she says lightly, before dropping her gaze again to the table. "I remember my mother picking me up from ballet class and taking me to my father's office. . . I sat outside in the lobby with one of his officers. . . But I could hear them shouting."

He looks at her with sympathy, her own eyes on the table between them but images from forty years earlier flashing before her mind.

"I think the officer who sat with me might have been the same one she was worried about. . . I remember when my mother stormed out of my father's office and dragged me with her, she glared at the woman. I didn't understand why. She'd been so nice to me. Talked to me about ballet."

She says the last part in a small voice. As though her vague liking of a woman who may or may not have been her mother's rival was some kind of profound betrayal.

He opens his mouth to say something, but immediately reconsiders. She notices the hesitation but is too lost in her own thoughts to venture an inquiry.

"I'm sure there was nothing going on," he says, drawing her back.

"I'm sure there wasn't," she echoes, genuinely confident. "It's just strange to put together pieces of a puzzle that I didn't even know existed a week ago."

He looks at her patiently. He won't say 'I told you so,' even in his posture. But she knows he's thinking it.

She sets aside the knowledge, coming to sit at the table across from him.

"So are you going to answer my first question?" she asks, slipping into a chair.

He looks at her with surprise.

It isn't so much because she has returned, full circle, to the start of the conversation, as this has already become the pattern of most of their dialogues. Rather, he's taken back because he isn't sure why she feels the need to hear him answer the question. When they both know his earlier dodge was as a good as a confirmation.

As she sits staring at him, he honestly has no clue what it is she's after.

"I was a bit infatuated I suppose," he begins slowly. "But I don't know that it was quite a crush. Maybe something between that and hero worship?"

"Hero worship," she repeats, with obvious doubt.

He smiles slightly. An expression that's more rueful than amused.

"Just because I was more cynical than Harry doesn't mean I wasn't capable of having heroes. . . I was just. . . slower to pick them than he was."

She waits, letting his words sink in, and he watches her. Trying to pinpoint the nature of her curiosity.

"Whatever feelings I had were vague at best," he says, shaking his head. "And I never gave much thought to them. They just evaporated on their own." He adds, crossing his arms, "I was never in love with you."

It's the kind of thing someone could say with the attention of inflicting pain. But Tom means his words as reassurance, and this is precisely how Kathryn accepts them.

"I know that," she responds, a little too quickly.

His eyes narrow slightly.

"Do you? . . . Did you?"

She lets of a deep breath, contemplating his challenge.

Neither of them will voice it, even now, but she knows that he's thinking back to the aftermath of the warp ten incident. That he's remembering the searching stare she had given him in Sickbay, after the Doctor transformed them back into (bipedal) human form.

"I guess I wondered at one point," she concedes eventually. "But I wasn't really concerned."

He raises an eyebrow; a further challenge. She looks back at him evenly.

"You were never very good at hiding those kind of feelings, Tom. Either with Kes or with B'Elanna. . . If you would have felt that way, I would have known."

He nods, accepting her answer, before getting up from his seat to start their day.

"Not all of us can be like the enigmatic Kathryn Janeway," he teases.

He doesn't see her face fall as she follows him into the kitchen. The way she freezes in the doorway.

"Tom?"

He hears her voice behind him and stops, but doesn't turn around to look at her.

"Hmm?"

"Was I too good at hiding my own feeling?"

She isn't talking about feelings toward him, he knows. And for the first time in days he's at a complete loss for what to say.

He can't possibly tell her that she did a pitiful job of hiding from her staff her feelings for Chakotay. Despite doing an impressive job of robbing Chakotay himself of any assurance.

He won't rip open an old wound. One that he isn't even supposed to know is there.

"Sometimes," he acknowledges, after a few beats. "Other times they were clear as day."

The response is vague enough to spare both Tom's conscience and the better part of Kathryn's feelings.

Still, when being work on the den later, she falls quiet; deep in thought for hours.

. . . . .

Seventeen days into Tom's stay, Kathryn is called back to Starfleet Command.

"I might have to stay in San Francisco tomorrow as well," she apologizes, putting on her uniform jacket. "There's been a shake up in the Romulan Senate."

"Again?" he asks incredulously. "Doesn't that government ever take a break from launching coups?"

She fails to reply, not at liberty to make any further remarks.

He watches her silently as she switches into professional mode, the way she's pulled her hair up taking him back in time.

"If you don't want to stay here, I understand," she remarks, putting on her lipstick in the entryway mirror.

She sees his reflection give a non-committal shrug.

"I was going into the office today anyway for that meeting on a new program we're being commissioned to write. I may stay there a little later, get some work done."

She nods, already distracted by thoughts of diplomacy and strategy.

"I'll see you when I see you," she says, the wistfulness in her voice the only sign that she doesn't want to trudge all the way to Headquarters to deal with a crisis that could be handled without her.

"Be careful," he admonishes, making her chuckle slightly.

"The rebellion is on Romulus, not Earth," she quips.

As she closes the door, he bites back the retort that she has a disturbing knack for finding any danger that exists within twenty parsecs.

. . . . .

When she returns from San Francisco, it's the same day and the summer sun is halfway through with its descent into the west.

Making away through the grounds that lead up to the old farmhouse, she expects to find Tom gone. Either in New Jersey, or at home in Portland. Desiring for one night to sleep in his own bed, despite that the familiar mattress is absent his sleeping companion of six years.

She's surprised to find Tom working away in the front yard instead. Ten meters of ground torn up around him, and six of them already punctuated with dark green shrubs.

"I thought you would still be in New Jersey," she says, shielding her eyes from the sun.

"Our meeting was postponed. It was with Starfleet, but no one from Headquarters could make it out today."

He doesn't ask about the events of her day, but whether he's trying to respect the secrets she must keep or he's become uninterested in matter of diplomacy, she can't tell.

"What are you planting?" she asks, dropping to her knees beside him in the dirt.

"Burning Bush," he replies, handing her a trowel. "I hope you don't mind. . . I thought the area around the porch could use some brightening."

She pauses, considering the appeal the plants add to the off-white structure.

She told him the day of the funeral that she planned on selling the house, and she still does. Despite this, she suspects he's planted the shrubs more for her own appreciation than to add curb appeal for prospective buyers.

She sighs her approval as she works at digging out a home for one of the shrubs. Discarding her uniform jacket when the heat gets to her.

"I hope whoever buys the house likes red," she comments, after they've planted the last shrub.

"Command red," he jokes, causing her to shake her head. "If not, they can just close their eyes for twelve weeks out of every year."

She eyes him with mirth, even more amused at the sight of him covered in dirt than his brazen disregard for the feelings of the property's future owners.

"You're quite the sight," she teases, accepting the hand he's offered her as she rises.

"You don't look so proper yourself, Admiral. . . I don't think that dirt is standard issue."

Walking up the steps, she snorts, smirking in a way he can't see as he follows her into the house.

"And despite it all, B'Elanna really decided to marry you instead of ending things? How terrible for her."

His chortled amusement, like their muddy footprints, trails behind her in the entryway.

. . . . .

"Phoebe's coming tomorrow," Kathryn informs him, the next night over dinner.

Tom swallows the wine he's just taken a drink of, looking at her with interest.

"How long?"

"Just for a day or so," she replies. "She can't leave her children that long given John's job, but I think she feels guilty she's left me to take care of the house by myself."

"You haven't been by yourself," he counters, failing to keep the wounded expression off his face.

"She feels guilty that I'm taking care of the house without her," she modifies, her tone apologetic.

"Are you upset she hasn't helped you?"

"No. . . Not really. I have weeks of leave built up that I've refused to take, and she just started a new teaching position at an art institute in Maryland."

He forks another bite of the dinner he's cooked, waiting for her to go on.

"Also- and please don't take this the wrong way, Tom- but I really wouldn't have wanted to do this with her."

He still waits patiently, chewing his meal and showing no outward signs of judgment.

"Phoebe's emotional. More emotional than I am. And as much as I love her and count her as one of my closest friends. . ."

"You're typically the one to care of her," he ventures, trying with his casual tone to ease her obvious discomfort.

"Typically," she echoes, rolling the thought around in her head. "It's been good to have the freedom to experience my own grief without having to worry about hers."

Tom puts down his fork, vacillating between several thoughts that compete for prominence in his head.

"Maybe she lets you take of her because you don't allow her to take care of you," he theorizes, after a period of silence.

Her head shoots up, and he can tell immediately that she's getting upset.

"You've never been very good at lowering your shields," he reminds her.

Studying him, she sees that his expression is soft and his eyes kind. Her agitation dissipates, its dissolution causing her a new frustration.

She can't maintain anger at him for longer than a moment anymore, and it's a shift that annoys her as much as it reassures.

"I don't know," she breathes. "I feel like it's a different with Phoebe."

"Different with her than it was with me? Different than it was the members of the crew would have laid down their lives for you, let alone coming to your mother's funeral?"

She searches his face for any sign of frustration, but all she finds is concern and a tinge of sadness.

"I don't know," she repeats, shaking her head and going back to her dinner.

When he gets up to clear the table not long after, he surprises her by dropping a chaste kiss at the top of her head before he straightens up, her plate in hand.

She looks at him questioningly, thrown off by the token of affection as much as she's pleased by it.

"Thank you for this," he says, his complete comfort a counterpoint to her obvious unease.

His words deepen her confusion. The last two and a half weeks have hardly been a vacation for him, and she thinks she should be the one thanking him for his support. And his patience.

He smiles at her expression, amused at how poorly she can read people in spite of her many other talents.

"It's been nice to spend this time with you. Talk like this. . . It's something I've wanted for a long time."

Her eyes well with tears that it takes her a little longer to blink away than usual, and when she starts to speak, her chin wobbles slightly.

"I'm sorry it's taken this long. I should have-"

He cuts her apology off with a disapproving shake of his head and a hand on her shoulder.

"No more apologies. From either of us."

Helping him put away dishes in the kitchen, she falls silent as she did when they packed away the den. Her mind circling around the one apology she still needs to voice and her worry that he won't give her the chance.

. . . . .

The day that her sister comes, Tom spends most of the day in New Jersey. His meeting with Stafleet has been rescheduled, and though he could put if off again, he thinks it best to allow Kathryn some time alone with Phoebe. When he enters the house late into the afternoon, he decides it was a mistake to return at all.

Having grown up with two older sisters, he would rather be caught in the middle of a bloody Romulan coup that continue into the living room; the two raised voices therein indicating that Kathryn and Phoebe are fighting.

"You aren't getting any younger, Katie."

The words make him freeze. Phoebe is venturing to go where neither Tom, nor anyone else in Kathryn's life, has boldly gone before.

"I believe the effects of gravity make that painfully clear to me, Phoebe. Everyday that I wake up."

He can't help but chuckle at the reply. He's had is own share of distress at the shifts in his body, the last few years.

He immediately curses his passing amusement. His laughter, however low, alerting the warring women to his presence.

"Tom?" Kathryn calls, desperately wanting a reason to derail the conversation.

"Hi," he greets, strolling into the living room with an ease he doesn't at all feel.

Phoebe regards him for only a moment before choosing, without any apparent reservation, to draw him into the battle.

"Tom, would you please tell Kathryn that her personal life, if you could even call it that, isn't going to wait for her to finally choose it over her career."

The jarring tendency to skip preambles is a family trait, Tom decides, looking between the two women who are sure to cause him physical harm if he sides with the other.

He leans against the couch. A move that's meant to buy him time more than anything else.

"I don't know," he drawls innocently, "Kathryn is as lovely now as the day I met her. Who knows how stunning she'll be in another ten years."

The compliment makes Kathryn flush and Phoebe laugh. A victory, Tom thinks, giving himself a mental round of applause.

"That being said," he adds, looking at his former Captain. "I would like to dance at your wedding one of these days."

"Dance?" Kathryn asks, crossing her arms. "At my wedding?"

"Yes," he responds, strangely undeterred. "I expect the first one, as a matter of fact."

"Isn't that an honor reserved the groom?" Phoebe admonishes, a sly smile on her face.

He looks at Kathryn rather than Phoebe when he answers, emboldened by the younger Janeway's frankness.

"To hell with him. . . Whoever he is."

When Phoebe throws back her head and laughs, Kathryn runs a hand over her forehead. Deciding, with dark amusement, that it was a mistake to let her sister spend any time with Tom.

. . . . . .

After spending four hours between the warring Janeways, Tom is relieved down to his toes when Phoebe seconds his idea to go into Bloomington and have a few drinks.

He has watched the two siblings, in both word and posture, argue over everything from what to do with their mother's furniture to Kathryn's decision to read the journals.

"I don't want to know," Phoebe had exclaimed, covering her ears when Kathryn began to tell her about something she had read in the last day.

Tom eyed Phoebe with sympathy, understanding her sentiment, and Kathryn shot him a pointed glare.

He would be punished for mutinous behavior. Whether or not there was a waiting brig.

"No shortage of cornfields or bars," he reminds Kathryn presently, a hopeful smile on his face when Phoebe echoes his suggestion to go out.

She looks at him with moody eyes and a put off expression.

"You two can go out. I don't feel like it."

His face falls at this, and he turns to her with pleading eyes.

"I'm not going without you. But if you don't feel up to it, we can stay here. Maybe build a bonfire in the backyard."

She deflates moments later. Abruptly guilty for wrongly punishing him for the irritation her sister has caused her.

"No," she says quickly. "You're right. We should go out."

When Tom goes upstairs to change and comm B'Elanna, Phoebe looks at Kathryn with a small smirk.

"Too bad he's married."

Kathryn feels appalled at first, thinking she's suggesting Tom for herself. But when she remembers the appreciative look Phoebe gave him when they were first introduced after _Voyager_'s return home, she realizes her sister's thoughts aren't quite so selfless.

"Well he _is_ married. Happily, might I add."

Phoebe only rolls her eyes. A happily married woman herself, she hadn't meant anything serious by the comment. It was just a joke. A private confession between sisters.

"I find it terribly distressing," Phoebe begins dramatically, putting on her earrings, "that in all the things you discovered in the Delta Quadrant, the ability to take a joke wasn't one of them."

When Tom comes back down stairs, both women have fallen into an eerie silence.

Switching on the porch light as they leave, he wonders if this is how the future Janeway felt as she approached the Borg hub. Knowingly heading for certain death.

. . . . . .

Two hours into their stay at the bar, Tom has forgotten his reservations.

He and Kathryn's sister have the same dark, inappropriate sense of humor, and they exchange animated anecdotes as they drain beers, the empty glasses accumulating between them with impressive speed.

As Kathryn sips her second glass of wine, she watches Tom and her sister with mixed emotions.

It's rewarding to see the two of them getting along so well. She suspected, in fact, that they would. But seeing Tom so easily share with Phoebe stories he's never shared with her- colorful accounts of pranks in the Academy; even more horrifying tales of things he and Harry Kim conspired to pull off - Kathryn feels the steady prick of jealousy.

It's ridiculous, she scolds herself, to feel this about Tom. A man ten years her junior and who used to be her officer. Someone's who's wedding she performed with joy, whose wife she adores, and whose child she feels honored to be the god-mother of.

More baffling, she's never had romantic feelings for Tom, even in passing.

So why is it when she sees Phoebe (who has an astounding ease with people and none of her own inhibitions) touching Tom's arm, she feels the desire to put her wine down and stalk away?

When Phoebe inevitably spots a long-lost friend in the bar, Tom looks at Kathryn with an odd expression as her younger sister moves to the other side of the room.

"She knows everyone in Indiana," Kathryn jokes, forcing a smile.

The smile doesn't make it to her eyes, and Tom quickly changes seats to be across from her.

"You've been awfully quiet," he probes.

"I've just been watching the two of you. . . I'm glad you like her so much. You have a lot in common."

Tom pauses, suspecting that there's something beneath the false cheer she's offering him.

"I do like her," he confesses, examining the contents of his glass. "But. . . I must admit, I like her sister more."

She closes her eyes. Embarrassed that he's located the irrational jealousy she feels around Phoebe. When she opens her mouth, he resumes speaking before she can get out an apology.

"Please don't tell her," he requests, with mock seriousness. "I mean, I'm sure she would understand. But at the same time. . . I _am_ hard to get over. Women have died because of their longing for me, I'm sure."

He punctuates the joke with an impish grin, and whatever discomfort she feels is washed away by amusement.

However mature and compassionate he's become, Tom is still Tom.

When they both stop laughing, he looks at her with a soft expression.

"So. . ." she says, sipping her wine, "you want to dance at my wedding."

He closes one eye, a lopsided smile appearing on his face.

"The wedding I don't so much care about. But it would make me happy to see you find someone who brings you as much peace as B'Elanna brings me."

"You bring me peace," she says, touching his hand briefly.

It's as much a dodge as a compliment, but he lets it slide.

"Now, as far as the dancing," he declares, standing up. "That needn't wait for a wedding."

When Phoebe comes to stand beside Tom, she looks at her older sister, whose expression is a dubious one, with an arched eyebrow.

"I'm trying to convince your sister to dance with me," Tom explains, looking at Phoebe.

"Oh, go on, Kathryn. It's not going to kill you."

After tossing Tom's co-conspirator a glare, Kathryn looks at her former helmsman with lingering uncertainty.

"It'll be fun," he assures, his face far too innocent. "It's good to let your hair down for a while. . . Especially given all the time you spend pinning it up."

Kathryn shoots him another disapproving look, taking his proffered arm anyway.

"You better not step on my feet, Mister Paris."

"Never, ma'am."

As Tom leads Kathryn away from the table, Phoebe watches them. Silently wondering if her sister secretly appreciated her comment back at the house after all.


	5. The choices we make

**The choices we make**

Tom's screams wake her from her sleep. Slicing through the haze of her unconsciousness quickly, even though she isn't sure at first where she is or what's wrong.

She stumbles into his room, catching the doorway with her shoulder and a muttered curse; following the sound on instinct more than anything else.

It's only when her vision clears that she sees him thrashing in his bed. Relief finding her that whatever danger threatens him, it's only in his unconscious. Be it the phantoms of things imagined or, worse, those remembered.

"Tom," she whispers, touching his shoulder.

He stirs, but doesn't wake, muttering something incoherent.

"Tom," she repeats, this time louder and shaking him.

When he snaps awake, his whole body jerks. His eyelids flying open to reveal fear and panic, even in the darkness of the room.

"You alright?" he asks, looking at her through his abating disorientation.

The question is laughable, but she regards him with concern rather than amusement.

"You were screaming," she explains. "It woke me up. . . I thought something was wrong."

He closes his eyes and his cheeks flush with an embarrassment she can't quite see.

"I was. . . I had a nightmare." He adds, attempting to sound casual, "I'm fine. Sorry I woke you."

She doesn't buy it, though it's unclear whether it's because he isn't very convincing or the fact that her own knowledge of nightmares makes her an expect on this kind of fear.

"What was the dream?" she asks gently, sitting down on the bed.

He hesitates. Unable to find the words to explain. Desiring, too, not to voice the dream that startled him.

"Something happened on Deep Space Nine, I think with the Dominion. Miral and B'Elanna. . . "

"They were in danger?" she asks, adopting the same whispered volume Tom did before his voice trailed off.

"I think so. . . I was there somehow but I couldn't get to them." He closes his eyes, continuing, "I could hear Miral scream for me and I couldn't get to her."

She places a hand on his shoulder, attempting to draw him out of the imagined sound that now haunts him.

"Do you often have nightmares?" she asks, after they've both remained quiet for a while.

"Not as often I used to," he admits. "And even when I do now, they aren't the same ones that I used to have."

She falls silent, waiting for him to continue his confession, and eventually he does.

"I used to dream about Caldik. But now. . . I think about Miral. . . All the things that could happen."

"I understand," she admits after a few beats and he looks up, searching her face.

She doesn't think to hide the traces of worry and pain that remain from her years in the Delta Quadrant. The lingering images of her crew marooned on a desert planet.

Imagined thoughts of _Voyager_ buried under a layer of ice and snow; her bridge littered with the bodies of the dead and dying.

"It got better after B'Elanna. It's worse now, I guess. . . sleeping alone. "

She nods, lifting the covers to slide into bed next to him.

"You don't have to stay," he says, though it's because he fears for her comfort level rather than his own. "I'm fine. Really."

She only gives a dismissive wave before settling into the bed.

After ten minutes, they're both wide awake, both of them more distracted by remembered nightmares than the proximity of each other.

"You were awfully quiet today," he observes, once it becomes clear sleep is going to remain at bay for sometime.

"Was I?" she asks, sounding distracted.

They only have two days left before Kathryn's leave ends and Tom must return to Portland to get his home ready for his returning family. While the latter has ticked the time away with bated thoughts, the former has felt a slowly materializing sense of loss that has nothing to do with her mother.

His only response to her question is a pointed look, the mildly frustrated face he angles toward her clearly lit by the moonlight that drifts in from the large window.

"I've been reading my mother's entries from just before I went into the Academy," she admits. "Some of the entries have me a bit distracted."

"She didn't want you to go into Starfleet, did she?"

"No," she confirms. "But I think she'd accepted that I would long before I entered the Academy. . . I was so much like my father."

She doesn't go on, still distracted by her own thoughts, and after a minute of silence he decides to press.

"The entries that you've been thinking about. . . They're about you going into Starfleet?"

"No. . . Well, one of them is, but that's not really what I've been thinking about. . ."

When she doesn't continue this time, he doesn't know whether she's still puzzling or genuinely unwilling to continue the conversation. He finds himself torn between his curiosity and his desire to respect her boundaries.

However strange that desire is, lying in a bed next to her.

"Before I left the house, my mother and father were having problems. Arguing about my sister and I. I never knew how profound the disagreement was. But I guess. . . during the year they were arguing, she met someone else."

"She had an affair?"

"No," she responds quickly. "She never acted on it. . . But she met someone at Phoebe's school. An art teacher. . . She fell in love with him."

She explains it with confusion. As though all of her knowledge about the woman she just buried has been betrayed by this epiphany of her emotional infidelity.

Tom purses his lips, collecting his thoughts. He isn't sure if he can shed a light on what she's worrying about, but he can try. At the very least, he knows the woman next to him is capable of understanding the grey, even if now and then she resorts to the black and white.

"B'Elanna and I had a rough patch after we got home," he ventures, shifting the conversation. "I mean more than a passing argument. . . We were seriously on the rocks."

"What? When?"

She's completely thrown off by the information. Abandoning her worries about her mother and father entirely.

"At the end of our first year home," he breathes, closing his eyes. "We were finally settling into San Francisco. Getting used to being back home. . . A lot of conversations we skipped before we got married and had a child caught up with us once we weren't living lives filled with enemy fire and red alerts. "

"I had no idea," she confesses..

He stirs slightly. A movement that would be a shrug if not restricted by the blankets and his horizontal position.

"We didn't want anyone to know."

"You didn't try to hide when you fought on _Voyager_," she points out, a hint of accusation creeping into her voice.

He understands the wounded sentiment, irrational or not. The obvious opening to discuss this was weeks earlier, when they talked about his hasty marriage or else her mother's jealousy. He'd hoped she hadn't noticed then, when he swallowed a comment in the middle of that conversation.

Laying next to him, she remembers that hesitancy, as well how brief Tom and B'Elanna's appearance was at the first crew union, the one she threw about eight months after their return.

She'd been hurt when they showed up for only an hour, kept their distance from her, and then departed without a word. She even took it as a painful sign of the distance that was to come, having escaped the confines of a tiny ship and forced relationships.

"It was one thing on the ship," he explains now. "Before we had Miral. But once we got home, we felt like we should have our act together. . . I felt embarrassed that we were the same immature couple who didn't trust each other."

She closes her eyes, thinking back to Tom's desperate pleas when B'Elanna wanted to resequence Miral's genomes. She'd felt terribly worried for both of them, despite the calm demeanor she tried to exude.

Beneath that, she'd felt selfishly relieved that Tom had sought her out. It was his first open act of personal trust in her, however frantic, after his demotion.

"I would have lent an ear," she says, not caring that the statement is selfish. "You could have come to me as a friend. Not a former Captain. I would have supported you."

"I knew that," he says, his apologetic tone inexplicably endorsing her selfish concerns. "But I didn't go to anyone about it. I didn't even tell Harry."

"So," she murmurs, after he falls silent, "One of you. . .?"

He realizes abruptly that she's trying to connect the dots between her mother's life and his own, but has connected them inappropriately.

"No," he assures. "Neither of us cheated. And I don't think either of us even thought of anyone else. . . At the very least, I never did."

"But?"

"But. . . It would be understandable if during that period, when we were both so unhappy, one of us had thought about it. Developed feelings for someone else, even if we never acted on it."

She casts her eyes to the ceiling, weighing his words.

Considering the clemency, however personal, that he's trying to extend to her mother.

"Still," she counters slowly, "as unhappy as you may have been, you didn't think of anyone else. You worked through your problems."

He lets go of a frustrated sigh that she finds irksome. Propping himself up with an elbow, he looks at her as though she's Naomi Wildman and he's caught her crawling through some corner of _Voyager_ she has no business being in.

"Did your mother actually do anything about her feelings?" he prods.

"No."

"And did she have the chance to?"

"I guess. . . The man lived in town. And my father was frequently away."

"But she didn't- she chose your father. Chose her marriage, for all it's failings at the time, over her passing feels for that other man."

"I don't know that. . ."

"Yes or no. She chose her marriage?"

"Yes," she relents, with a sigh of her own.

"Well, than that's what you should take away from her entries. That she had a choice and she made it. . . The fact that there was someone else she felt pulled toward- the fact that there wasn't someone I felt pulled toward- was just a matter of luck. What matters is the choice she made."

It takes her a minute to analyze his assertion, but when she does- when she realizes he's swayed her- she looks at him with a soft expression.

"You and B'Elanna got lucky."

It's as much a question as a statement. The echo of sentiments he's already voiced, now finding her with new meaning.

"We did," he confirms, his eyes betraying his relief.

She smiles at him before settling a little deeper into her pillow. When she closes her eyes again, sleep finds her faster than she would have expected.

. . . . .

As she slowly she wakes up to something solid and warm pressed against her, she feels disoriented. When she realizes it's Tom, she worries that he's mistaken her for B'Elanna in his sleep. A hand perhaps inappropriately placed where it has no business being on his friend.

It's only when she surveys their positions that she realizes that she's the one who's rolled onto his side of the bed, Tom's arms remaining innocently at his sides.

She thinks to roll away from him, but can't quite bring herself to do so. Her mother's house is old and drafty, and Tom's warmth brings a welcome reprieve from the breeze that seeps in through the window.

Before she can fall back into sleep, Tom's voice drags her back to consciousness.

"You should be careful about cuddling with me, Admiral. My wife is half Klingon and her temper is noted in two quadrants."

He means it as a joke, she knows by the use of her rank. But she immediately feels the prickle of guilt at the thoughts his quip elicits.

"Are you going to tell about B'Elanna about this?" she asks, turning over to face him.

He looks at her with confusion. He's slow, still half asleep, having woken only because fatherhood has ruined his habit of heavy sleeping.

"That I had a nightmare?"

He takes note of the pointed look she gives him while he yawns. Catching on, finally, to her concern.

"Maybe," he says, unconcerned. "But maybe not. I don't know that it's of any consequence to her."

Her complete skepticism is betrayed by her expression, and he looks back at her with a skeptical expression of his own.

"She trusted you with her life," he admonishes. "The life of our unborn child as well. I think it's a foregone conclusion that she trusts you to sleep in the same bed as her husband without incident."

"Not quite the same leap of faith," she retorts, and he now finds himself completely confused.

"Kathryn, if you were uncomfortable, you could have left. . . There was no need to stay with me."

She looks at the wall rather than him. This isn't really what she meant, and couching her thoughts in terms of concern for B'Elanna has only muddied the waters.

"It's not that," she responds, shaking her head. "It's just that our relationship has always been - "

"Complicated?"

She was going to say 'hard to define,' but 'complicated' captures it just as well, and so she nods slowly. Trying to find a better of explaining it, but failing miserably.

She feels protective of Tom, though not in the same quasi-maternal she watches over Harry Kim. Phoebe's stay has made her aware of the fact that she feels possessive of him, too, but she's never felt the faint longing for him she once did for Chakotay.

She trusts him, instinctively, and without reservation. But her connection to him is beyond logic, unlike longtime friendships, like her bond with Tuvok.

The only way, it seems, that she can describe their relationship is the infinite list of dissimilarities it enjoys with other relationships in her life; a growing stream of negations she mentally checks off, one by one, the more they open up to one another about the past.

"Complicated isn't a bad thing," Tom says, after a while.

"Oh?" she asks, moving to get up.

"Would you trade our friendship for something simpler? For something easier to explain?"

She considers the question as he gets up from the bed, stretching his arms above his head.

"No," she responds, beginning to make the bed. "There are things I would choose to do differently if I could. But nothing I would fundamentally change."

"So stop worrying," he admonishes, throwing his hands in the air and chuckling.

"Fine," she declares dramatically, "but at the first sign of trouble, I'm telling your wife that it was _you _who had a crush on _me_ ten years ago."

"Coward!" he calls, as she exits the room laughing.

. . . . .

The last day together, Kathryn seems contemplative and Tom tries to give her space to work through her emotions.

In only a few hours, he'll transport back to Portland, to the empty house that will soon be filled with his daughter's laughter and the piles of work B'Elanna leaves behind her like discarded crumbs. Leaving Kathryn in the empty house she grew up in. Only to return to an empty apartment filled with achievements of an impressive career, but little else.

"Did you know that Seven of Nine once asked Harry if he'd liked to copulate?"

He asks it over lunch, attempting to tease her out of her silence, and she looks back at him in shock.

"She didn't," she says with horror, looking at him across the table that is the last item of furniture to remain in the house.

"She did," he confirms, a sly smirk spreading across his face. "Chakotay really didn't tell you?"

She shakes her head, amusement and disapproval fighting for control of her expression.

"He probably wanted to save Harry the embarrassment," she guesses.

She's chiding him, but it's a kind of reproach he knows she doesn't really feel. Her twinkling grey eyes are giving her away.

"If I wanted to embarrass Harry, I would tell you that he's convinced that you and Jean-Luc Picard are secretly sleeping together."

"What?" she manages, now almost choking on her lunch.

"That conference on Vulcan last year," he explains.

"The one on the Borg? We were on one panel together and then we went out for dinner after. But it was with ten other people and certainly not romantic in nature!"

The idea of being coupled with the Fleet's most famous Captain seems to horrify her more than the story about Harry and Seven, and Tom tries to hide his immense amusement as he continues picking at his meal.

He'd assumed this bit of gossip would have such an effect on her.

"Oh, I know," he shrugs, his expression innocent, "but you know Harry. Prone to believing gossip, no matter how ridiculous."

She eyes him with sudden suspicion.

"Harry's only prone to believing tawdry gossip when it comes from his best friend. Who is, and always has been, a corruptive influence on him."

He tries to hold back his laughter. But looking across at her crossed arms and accusing expression, he can't. He quickly folds, his shoulders tucking in with laughter.

"Alright," he relents, between chuckles, "I may have been the one to convince him that you were seeing Picard."

"Tom!"

When she buries her face in her hands, obviously mortified, it only makes him laugh harder, slumping back in his chair and pushing away his plate.

"I had to do it," he defends. "If only to convince Harry you're not some kind of demigod. A high priestess who's as virginal as she is powerful."

She wrinkles her nose in distaste at the word 'virginal', but despite herself, she begins to shake with laughter.

"So, you convinced Harry- even though you know I'm not dating Jean-Luc? Or you convinced Harry because you hoped I was dating Jean-Luc?"

"Hoped?" he practically spits. "Definitely not."

"What's wrong with Jean-Luc Picard?" she tests. "He's a kind man. Intelligent. Well-read, too, from what I can tell."

"And almost two decades your senior," Tom adds, pulling a face. "As spry as I'm sure he is. . . "

He doesn't finish the thought, to her relief. Yet somehow she finds his sentiment flattering nonetheless.

"Alright," she begins with a sigh, resting her elbows on the table, "so if not Jean-Luc Picard, who would you choose for me?"

She says it lightly, her face still smiling, but Tom recognizes immediately the risk she's taking in asking.

There any of number of possibilities he could voice that would cause her pain rather than amusement. The most likely one now residing on Dorvan V, alongside a woman she once regarded as something akin to a daughter.

"Let's see," he murmurs, feigning contemplation. "Who to pair the great Kathryn Janeway with."

She rolls her eyes as the silence stretches; Tom's exaggerated pose, finger tapping against his chin, tempting her to throw her napkin across the table at him.

"Even though I've only met him twice. . . Will Riker seems about your speed."

"Will Riker," she repeats. "You do realize he's married now?"

He shrugs dismissively.

"Marriages end," he deadpans. "You can always nab him if he gets divorced."

Her eyes narrow. However ridiculous this conversation, she refuses to bested by her former helmsman in banter. No matter how much his cheek tests her boundaries of propriety.

"Maybe," she allows, gesturing slightly with her hand. "But even before he was married, he was a pompous ass. And I just can't imagine anything he has to offer would be worth it."

He isn't thrown off by her uncharacteristic crudeness, volleying back a reply immediately.

"I don't know, Kathryn. If you ask my wife, she'd probably tell you that pompous asses often have plenty to back up their egos."

We waggles his eyebrows as she finishes, sipping his beverage to hide the smirk he can't contain.

She wants to glare at him, but manages to restrain herself. Stirring her food around her plate, she mimics being in deep thought.

"You're probably right," she concedes, and he looks at her with mild surprise. "But I'd have no use for him now. . . Not since he's gained all that weight."

She decides, humbly, not to gloat out loud when Tom throws back his head, laughing so hard that the sound echoes through the entire house.

. . . . .

"Well that's it," he says, placing his duffel bag by the staircase, "the only thing now is the dining room."

He follows her into the dining room silently, Kathryn's arms crossed over her chest. It's a sign of discomfort, but the only one she'll allow herself.

"Do you want the dining room table?" she asks, surprising him.

"You should take it," he responds, shaking his head, "it's been in your family for three generations."

"I don't have room for it in my apartment- it's too big. That's why I'm taking the one in the kitchen instead."

He looks between her and the table with mixed emotions. He loves the old pine table, but he doesn't like the idea of acquiring her family heirloom.

"B'Elanna and I will take it," he agrees reluctantly. "But only until you have room for it."

"You'll take it and you'll keep it," she counters firmly. "I want it to stay in the family."

Her words could just be a polite echo of his own, four weeks earlier. But looking at her in the room they've spent countless hours in, he doesn't think to take them as anything but sincere.

"I'll take it on one condition," he begins, Kathryn looking at him questioningly. "And that's that you visit the table often."

"I'll visit often. But not to see the table."

She smiles at him as she finishes. And he winks at her, giving her a toothy grin that reminds them of when they were both younger.

. . . . . .

"Tom," she says hesitantly, an hour before he's set to leave, "I haven't visited my mother's grave since the funeral."

"Do you want me to go with you now?" he offers.

He realizes that the fear of doing something alone is confession she's still unable to voice.

She gestures to the door with her head instead of responding, and he follows her outside and down the steps. They stop just outside the property, looking up the slight hill at the off-white structure that's now lined with the dark shrubs Tom planted.

"Are you sure you want to sell it?" he says, his eyes locked on the house.

"Yes," she replies after a moment. "It's tempting to keep it. . . to cling to the memories. But I'd rather not fill my days with ghosts and doubts about the past."

He nods as they turn, continuing their trek toward the cemetery.

"I understands" he says, shoving his hands in his pockets. "That's why B'Elanna and I moved from San Francisco."

"I thought you liked Portland."

"We do like Portland," Tom confirms. "But partly because it doesn't remind us of anything. . . We both looked around our apartment in San Francisco and saw the months we spent fighting. All those weeks we were unhappy. . ."

He shakes his head abruptly to banish the thought, and she touches his arm as they walk.

"I can't say that I think the two of you are worse off for leaving San Francisco," she volunteers. "The Starfleet presence can be pretty stifling."

"Are you thinking about moving?"

"Not right now. But eventually, yes."

"Portland is delightful," he points out playfully, and she thinks for a moment he's kidding.

"You're serious?" she presses.

"Why not? It would give B'Elanna someone to talk theory with. And me someone to go to bars with." He adds, his tone far too cheerful, "not to mention the free babysitting."

"I'm not sure if I'm ready for Portland," she remarks warily, causing him to chuckle.

"Fine," he declares. "Ruin my master plan."

"Your master plan is to live in the same city as me? You already did, before you moved away."

"No," he replies sweetly. "My master plan is for you to move to Portland. . . So I can convince your gullible Mister Kim that we're secretly having an affair."

He chooses, pompously, to gloat when she's struck mute with horror. His smile dimming only when she smacks him forcefully in the shoulder.

. . . . .

"I feel like I'm just getting to know her," Kathryn confesses, standing next to her mother's grave.

"At least you learned about her now," Tom consoles.

She glances at him quickly before returning her gaze to the headstone.

"Yes. But the knowledge feels like a waste. She's already gone."

"It's not a waste," he chides, with more vigor than she expected. "And I don't think she'd see it that way."

He knows that the presumptuousness with which he speaks invites her glare, but he doesn't back down; looking at her with an expression that dares her to argue that he's wrong.

She only deflates further. It seems to make the injury worse, the fact that Tom seems to understand her mother better than she does.

"She liked you," she remarks, the corners of her mouth flirting with a smile.

"I beg your pardon?"

"When you showed up at that first reunion but didn't stay, she asked about you. She wanted to know where the handsome pilot was that I'd introduced her to at McKinley Station."

He smiles, remembering when he met her mother when _Voyager _first docked. It was after he hugged his father and shook hands with John Torres.

He was so struck by how much she looked like an older version of his Captain that he was completely floored when she hugged him.

"I liked her, too," he murmurs, putting an arm around Kathryn's shoulder.

Eventually, he leads her away from the grave with a hand to the small of her back. He understands why she wanted to come, why it was necessary. But he doesn't want to her linger either.

Whatever is left of her mother, it isn't the body resting below their feet.

After they walk through the trees, they find themselves coming to rest on the same bench they found the day of the funeral. The weather is brilliant, as it was on the first day, and Kathryn closes her eyes. Content to bask in the comfortable silence and Tom's presence one more time.

"What I did with the Moneans wasn't impulsive. But what it wasn't thought out either. . . I don't think I really considered the full ramifications of what I was doing until I was already on the Flyer."

Her eyes snap open at his words, her whole body turning to look at him.

She hasn't even tried to bring up his demotion and the events preceding it, these last two weeks. She gave up after the fourth time he refused; assuming, however fearfully, that he wasn't willing to talk about it.

Learning to feel grateful, after that, that despite all that would continue to go unspoken between the two of them, there were enough things they had voiced to get them through.

"I should never have punished you when I was still angry," she admits, shaking her head. "I acted out of her personal feelings rather than professional ones."

"You didn't really have a choice," he posits. "It isn't as though your anger would have faded any in a few days. Or even in a few weeks."

It's tempting for her to take his words as an accusation, but they've come too far in their understanding of each others' mannerisms for her to think his muted expression hides anything but remorse for both of them.

"I wouldn't even listen to Chakotay when he asked me to reconsider your sentence. . . I don't know that I've ever been that angry."

When she pauses, he knows she isn't waiting for an apology from him. Still, he isn't sure what it is she does want.

"You know the funny thing," he begins, a mirthless chuckle interrupting his thought as he turns to her. "I think I did it because of you."

She looks at him, genuinely doubtful, and he struggles to explain.

"Don't get me wrong, I was honestly concerned by the idea of that planet ceasing to exit. . . But I think a small part of me wanted you to be proud of me. . . Part of me thought you would understand."

The realization hits her liking a rising tide, in small successive waves. Each of their conversations over the last four weeks bringing a different, painful bit of understanding as the memory finds her.

"I should have," she mutters, burying her face in her hands. "Heaven knows how many of my own decisions resembled yours that day."

When she ventures a look at him from between her fingers, his expression is rueful.

He noted the hypocrisy sometime ago, even if he never remarked on it.

"Still," he says eventually, his tone lacking conviction, "I was your officer and I disobeyed you."

It's a statement that captures woefully little of what transpired. They knew so five years ago, and they certainly know so now. He's giving her an out, she realizes, but isn't one that she's interested in.

However badly this conversation could go, they both want to have it. They both need to have it.

"It wasn't that you disobeyed me," she remarks, sitting up slowly. "It was that you betrayed me."

His eyes flash with pain and then with anger, the scar that he's carefully nursed for years finally ripped open as her blatant accusation.

"Harry and Tuvok betrayed you- B'Elanna betrayed you. Hell, Chakotay even betrayed you! Why was it only _my insubordination_ that mattered?"

His voice rises with anger. And she feels a momentary relief that if they're having this discussion, they're having it all the way.

"It wasn't the only one that mattered. It was just the one that hurt the most."

"But _why_?" he presses, his tone as desperate as it is hostile.

"Because it was you, Tom!" she shouts, as though this explains everything. "Because you were the one who didn't worship me or think of me as an institution. Because I trusted you, and in a way that I rarely trust anyone- a way that defies rationality or explanation, and that I would have defended until my dying breath. Right up until you chose to launch that damn ship!"

After the echoes of their anger fade, the faint rustle of leaves is all that's heard around them.

When he let's go of a ragged breath, she's surprised to feel his hand tugging at hers. She reluctantly leans against him.

Her anger is quickly abating, but her doubts still circle slowly around her, like the leaves shifting restlessly at her feet.

"I'm sorry I chose my own desires over your trust me in."

He grips her hand tightly when he says it, but doesn't look at her. Afraid, perhaps, of what he'll find in her eyes if does.

"And I'm sorry I chose my own ego and hurt feelings over fairness and my loyalty to you."

He closes his eyes at her apology, caught between his relief and a five-year-old pain that still feels fresh.

"You would have shot me down," he says.

It's painful echo of her own words when she demoted him, but which of them it hurts more now is unclear.

She slumps against his shoulder. No words seeming appropriate for an admission, nor any adequate as an apology.

After a minute of silence, she feels his arm move over her shoulder, his hand draping across her arm.

"I'm not sure why you trusted me after that," she whispers, her anger now usurped by a profound and familiar guilt.

"It was one day," he responds. "One day when we both made a series of unfortunate choices."

She pulls away from him slightly to look at his face. He seems convinced, but her own eyes are still full of doubt. He looks straight ahead, his eyes focusing on the trees in front of them.

"When B'Elanna and I were fighting, I could have walked away from my marriage," he declares suddenly. "Child or no child, I could have packed my bags and left."

She waits for him to continue. Hoping this is going somewhere pleasant, but unsure what that destination could possibly be.

"I made a choice, Kathryn. But it wasn't just one choice on one day. It's one that I make over and over again, just like we all do in our relationships. . . I wake up everyday, and I choose B'Elanna. And I choose Harry. And I choose you."

He strings the choices together easily. As though, however dissimilar, they're ultimately the same.

After a moment, she sees his point.

Countless of her relationships have fallen by the wayside over the years, whether through distance or change or both. But here she sits next to Tom Paris, ten years and an entire quadrant later, and she still trusts him. In a way that she rarely trusts anyone- a way that defies rationality or explanation.

Nodding, she closes her eyes again.

"You should come for dinner tomorrow night," he states, standing up and holding out his arm to her.

She can't help but laugh. They've just spent four weeks alone together, and he's already planning their next visit.

"They may be my family as well as yours, but you still need time alone with your wife and child. I'll come in a few days. . . Maybe take B'Elanna out and leave you alone to babysit Miral."

He threads his arm through hers, rolling his eyes as they turn to begin their walk back.

"How very thoughtful of you," he retorts sarcastically. "Remind me on my next visit with Phoebe to dig up the most embarrassing stories from _Voyager_ I can think of."

"You wouldn't dare."

"Try me, Admiral."

He laughs at her put off expression, both of them falling silent afterward.

"Tom?" she begins, as they pick their way back through trees.

"Hmm?"

"Did I mention I'm glad that you're here?"

"Yes. But feel free to say it as often as you like."

* * *

><p><em>For Chase, whom I choose everyday.<em>


End file.
